ShotSpotter Blog

SST Inc. Publishes 2013 National Gunfire Index

Aggregation and analysis of more than 51,000 gunshot incidents across the U.S.

I want to welcome you to the new SST Blog. As our first entry, I am proud to announce SST’s 2013 National Gunfire Index.

As the global leader in gunfire detection, location, alerting and analysis, we are in a unique position to aggregate and analyze data from gunshot incidents across the U.S. The 2013 index is a compilation of data from the 48 cities where ShotSpotter was deployed in 2013. ShotSpotter detected a staggering 51,357 gunshot incidents in that period.

The data in the 2013 National Gunfire Index is unprecedented, detailed and actionable. It can provide researchers and policy makers with real data necessary to investigate and correlate the impact[s] of illegal gunfire activity on all manner of public safety and public heath outcomes.

This report spells out the ‘inconvenient truth’ about gun violence in terms of scale, intensity, and most importantly, the potentially catastrophic downstream consequences if not effectively addressed. Our goal in making this 2013 index available is to spark a more informed discussion about the impact of gun violence on public health outcomes.

The Index is a launch pad for the work of others: it demonstrates the ‘art of the possible’ and we hope it will incentivize social scientists in respected institutions and policy makers to do the analysis and draw correlations between gun violence and many facets of community public health, such as child development and trauma-induced PTSD.

The conversation about gun violence needs to greatly expand beyond the typical definition of a gunshot victim as someone who is either killed or physically wounded. It must include the much larger number of individuals (often innocent children) who suffer emotional scars from not being afforded the basic human right of personal security.

The report has five important findings that we think you will find of interest. You can read the full report, along with our top five important findings, here: National Gunfire Index.

Ralph A. Clark
President and Chief Executive Officer
SST, Inc.

June 20, 2014By: Ralph A. Clark, President & CEO

About ShotSpotter, Inc.
ShotSpotter, Inc. is the global leader in gunfire detection and location technology providing the most trusted, scalable and reliable gunfire alert and analysis solutions available today.